OPERA PMS: Benefits And Challenges Essay.

Features and benefits of OPERA PMS

Discuss about the Analysis of using OPERA PMS.

The OPERA Property Management System (PMS) have been formulated to satisfy the requirements of the any property especially for the hotels.  It provides several techniques to run the hotels at a greater level of productivity and profitability. The OPERA PMS have been designed in such a way so that it can be configured to the specific requirements of the client hotels which can enable them to provide fast, accurate and updated information (Oracle, 2018).

It can assist its clients to reduce the installation and usage expenses of hardware, software and   other operating expenses through application of the various functions into a single database. It allows using a centralized database for various PMS. With the help of centralized software and hardware, the system is able to upgrade itself in an easier way. With the help of PMS, the efficiency of the labor may be increased by sharing the various functions amongst the properties such as accounting, sales, reservations and PBX (Pizam, 2010).

Traditionally, the OPERA PMS was defined as  a framework which  assisted the  hotels to monitor the front office  operations such as guest check –in /checkouts , booking reservations ,  managing room rates ,  allocation of rooms and billing . It is the substitute for time consuming paper works and spread sheet heavy processes.

OPERA PMS has extended its operations beyond the front desk. They are now crucial business operations  which assist the hoteliers to deliver excellent guest experiences .The OPERA PMS is  integrated to the other services which influence the  complete guest experience such as housekeeping and maintenance management , food and beverage options , sales and caterings for  booking of groups, event management , distribution across multiple channels , revenue  and spa management( Gulmez  et al.,2015).

Since the consumer’s travel journey is initiated by choosing a destination along with searching hotels suitable for their needs. The pre stay shopping for hotel and interactions related to booking followed by their interactions with the staff and hotel and their  experiences  during the stay are part of the  guest experiences. The sharing of the feedback on the social media after their stay are an important part which represents their experiences with the hotel . The hotels are challenged to provide a personalized guest experience which will help them to manage their business effectively (EY, 2015).

The OPERA PMS will help the hotels to instantly find a room across the world and its takes care of the future bookings too. The hotels can search rooms across the vast multi property systems and they can track the occupancy rate during the peak periods. They can easily access the information for a particular day. It gives full access to all the tools of inventory management, room controls and administration of contracts thereby decreasing the operating overheads pertaining to groups and blocks (Maestro, 2017).

Efficiency and productivity with centralized database

It reduces the interference of the third party so that the sales and front office can share a common set of information.

With the help of OPERA PMS the check in and check out capabilities of the hotel can be enhanced. It provides anytime anywhere service to the guests with the help of a mobile enabled cloud based hotel PMS. With the help of PMS, the front desk staff can verify the check in and the assigned rooms to the guests. They can also examine the services provided to the guests.

With the help of OPERAPMS the house keeping services can be improved. It increases the efficiency of the housekeeping with instant updates on the phones of the housekeeping as soon as the consumer checks out and the rooms are freed from cleaning. It enables more flexibility with the room management services and shortens the response timings for the facilities of room services. It helps in identifying and managing the necessities of room maintenance and ensuring that the rooms are in a perfect condition to be given to the customers (Oracle 2016).

With the help of integrated hotel back office mechanisms, the operations and financial processes can be connected together by maximizing the prebuilt integrations to account receivables, account payables and payment gateways. It helps in ensuring the accuracy of the lists of the guests for speedy billing.

However, it has certain disadvantages too. The staff has to be trained regarding the handling of PMS software. With the high turnover in the hospitality industry, it requires lot of training expenses to train the staff regarding its usage.

The OPERA PMS can prove to be a huge investment for the hotel. It can be   an additional cost of running for a small hotel. Furthermore, while using multiple software, the staff has to learn to use each   of its function which can be integrated with PMS. So, the software should only be integrated with PMS (Ivanov, 2014).

The system cannot be used outside the property as it is an internal information system, so the hotels which have different branches located at various parts of the world have to connect another reservation system to each of  their properties.

The PMS system cannot automatically update the software. It cannot provide the two way communication between the channels of booking, integration with the social media and mobile bookings. Since the staff becomes too much dependence upon the OPERA PMS, it creates problems during long power cuts .

Integrated operations beyond front desk

The OPERAPMS can assist in optimizing the guest life cycle in the following ways:

1. Prior to the arrival of the guest in the hotel, they have gained enough information of the hotel. The hotel has communicated the reservation through the emails or other marketing strategies to capture the reservation. It provides an opportunity for the hotel to generate additional revenue through the additional features and facilities to enhance the experience of the guests (Mahesh, 2011).

At this time, with the help of OPERA PMS, the Average Daily Rate (ADR) can be increased through higher consumer expenditures. The guest data can be used for consumer relationship initiatives.

The hoteliers can be provided an opportunity through OPERAPMS  to gain an insight of the behavior of the  consumers and  it can be used to build an everlasting brand utility which can motivate increased direct bookings (Bardi,2011).

2. With the help of PMS, the staff can promote their special services and items at the time of check in. The superior quality facilities can be highlighted on the website of the hotel.
3. Besides this the confirmation emails can be sent to the consumer along with sharing the details of the facilities the guest can select from to access (Dzhandzhugazova et al., 2016).
4. At the time of arrival of the guest, OPERA PMS can assist the hotel in providing a guest centered check-in and arrival details with the front desk technologies. Through OPERA the hotel can update the bookings in real time whether they are made through online or with agents.

The front desk can use the PMS to retrieve the information associated with the reservation and preferences of the clients and about the booking capacity of the hotel. It can assist the hotel to make the guest experience more personalized and providing it the flexibility to adjust or change the bookings instantaneously (Warren et al., 2016).

5. OPERA PMS safeguards the credit card payments from fraud. The credit card information of the client is sent to the off site server so that the guests can be secured from security breaches or misuses. It also enables the hotels to apply an extra identification feature with the help of microprocessor chip of the credit card for enhanced security.
6. During the stay of the clients in the hotel, the OPERA PMS can be integrated with other applications to enhance their knowledge about the guests. It traces data such as psychographics, demographics and past behavioral experiences so that the hotel is prepared for creating a valuable stay for the guests(O'Fallon & Rutherford, 2011).
7. With the help of OPERA PMS, the housekeeping module can be implemented to prioritize the rooms which need cleaning. The housekeeping executives can formulate the units of work and allocate the work to the staff members.
8. Through PMS, the housekeeping team can clean more rooms in short time with fewer resources. It assists the housekeeping to maintain efficient check-ins through notifying the front desk when the rooms are ready (Kasavana, 2013).
9. The OPERA PMS is accessible on all the mobile phones, tablet devices and desktop. With this the housekeeping managers can receive the real time updates when they are in the premises of the hotel thereby improving the internal communication.
10. After the departure of the clients from the hotel, OPERA PMS can help in increasing the occupancy rates in the future, RevPAR and the profitability through improved data accessibility and effectiveness of the processes. Thus, the satisfaction of the customers can be raised and the brand reputation can be build which in turn may boost the profitability of the hotel (Seymen, 2017).

As per Oracle (2016) the future hotel manager can develop the training program for the employees using the OPERA software in the following ways:

1. With the help of OPERA cloud, anytime anywhere services can be provided to the guests. The staff shall be trained to use the software to verify the check-ins , assign the rooms to the guests , develop the guest services and check the departure of the guests .
2. The staff should be trained to access the data in OPERA Cloud relating to the integration of the hotel systems and its infrastructure so that it can build the customized guest facing applications.
3. The housekeeping staff should be trained to work and manage their operations efficiently with the help of OPERA PMS. They can be updated about the cleaning of the rooms through their mobile devices when the rooms are freed for cleaning.
4. Greater flexibility should be enabled with room management systems and the employees must be trained regarding the improvement of the response time for room service tasks.
5. The staff must be trained to keep the rooms in a perfect condition by recognizing and managing the room maintenance  The front desk and the housekeeping should be trained to collaborate amongst themselves.
6. With regards to the back office of the hotels, the operations and the finance department should be trained so that they can prebuilt integrations to account receivables, payables, payment gateways , hotel industry applications and property infrastructure services( Do,2013).
7. The staff should be trained to ensure the accuracy of the guest folios which will lead to faster billing procedures.
8. In the context of sales and distribution, he staff should be trained to increase the room occupancy and ADR with the help of real time rate and availability management across all the distribution channels.
9. In the context of revenue management, the managers must train the staff to improve the ADR with all-encompassing options for setting the rates (Legohérel et al., 2013).
10. The managers must train to improve the ADR with advanced rate management characteristics for manual and semi manual revenue management features.
11. In the context of consumer data management, the staff must be trained to improve the quality and accuracy of guest profiles with the help of OPERA PMS.
12. The staff should comprehend the buying patterns of consumers so that they can provide personalized packages and services to the consumers.
13. Lastly, the staff should also be trained to ensure compliance with the international and international data management regulations (Xiao, 2010).

The emerging technologies influencing the management of room division operations are as follows:

1. Service Automation: In the present era, the guest prefers technology over and above the human interactions for getting their tasks done. With the help of service automation techniques such as remote check ins and check outs and apps which let the guests order room services through their mobiles, the requests of the guest can be automated with the right technology. It helps the staff of the hotel to perform the other activities thereby enhancing the guest experience.
2. Using mobile devices as door key: With the help of mobile devices, the client can open the door of the room (Alexis, 2017).
3. Connecting the room phones with the mobile: The room phone can serve a s a hub for vast connectivity. The guests can now pair up their mobile with the room phones and can use them to control their TV, blind and sound system.
4. Services based on location: Through comprehending the location of the hotel staff and the guests they can attempt to improve the experience of the guests by being able to deliver the services to them from helping them to check out to helping the staff operate more efficiently for transforming their rooms. The technology can be used on the basis of some employee location based features using SIP-DECT.
5. Guest Apps: With the help of smartly designed guest apps, all the features ranging from deal notifications to hotel services and loyalty programs can be operated from the mobile of the guests(Nieves & Cipres,2015).

If the guests uses the group rate for a conference, the app can be used to send every item of the  itinerary and to complete the map of meeting spaces where sessions can be held.

6. Technology based Lounges: In the present era, guests prefer the use of Wi-Fi in the hotels to relax or get the work done. So the hospitality business is transforming the wishes of the guests into semipublic spaces where they can involve with technology as per their convenience .
7. Technology enabled meeting places: With the help of technology, business people need to make multimedia presentations and video conferencing at the meeting places. The hotels need to be user friendly by creating advanced technology enablement in the event halls and ballrooms.
8. Social response of the clients regarding the hotels: With the help of social media tools, the hotels are able to find out the needs, wants, desires and complaints lodged by the consumers . They even want to know their responses through calls, mails and messages.

So, most of the activities of the hotels depend upon technology directly or indirectly thereby making IT more crucial to the operations of the hotels (Porreca, 2017).

In the modern era, the services of consumer facing robots are being used by several hotels in the world .So the machines and artificial intelligence are being able to handle a variety of jobs in the hospitality industry. Some of the technologies relating to artificial intelligence and robots are as follows:

1. Room services robots: The room service robots such as Relay are being used by several hotels to deliver the products to the guest rooms. After the receipt of the orders, the hotel staff loads the items into Relay. It navigates around the property by utilizing Wi-Fi, sensors and cameras. By utilizing the services of Relay, the hotel staff feels free to perform more complicated jobs.
2. In the field of maintenance and housekeeping in hotels, the services of Artificial Intelligence and Automated Fault Detection play a major role in assisting the hotel maintenance teams to manage the plant and equipment.
3. The robots can also be used as hotel porters. They can be used to lift the luggage of the guests to their rooms. The use of cargo vehicles such as the Gita can offer a great support regarding this (Wisskirchen et al., 2017).
4. From the perspective of the front desk, the services of the robots can be utilized to provide a formal greeting for the guests along with offering a faster check –in process. A front desk equipped with the services of robots and artificial intelligence is likely to provide more effective services than humans while dealing with room details and booking information.
5. The Artificial Intelligence can prove to be useful in offering language recognition and translation services in the hotel industry. In this context, a multilingual robot serving the overseas guests would highly be appreciated by them.
6. The AI enabled robots can be useful to the guests by recommending them the tips on local dining, places to visit and showing the  directions to navigate in the hotel.
7. With the help of this AI enabled robot, the hotel can use its services to provide each guest with a customized itinerary based on their preferences. It would also provide them with tailored recommendations based on their past data (West, 2015).
8. However it might not be appreciated by all the guests. Even if all their wishes and desires are fulfilled, they would miss the genuine care and attention which only humans can offer.
9. In the end, it would be advisable to use the joint efforts of humans and machines to enhance the experiences of the clients (Ivanov et al., 2017).

Conclusion

Hence to conclude, it can be said that OPERA PMS can  be used to empower the hotels by assisting them to deal with a full spectrum of tasks which comprises of managing the staff needs , speeding up the check-ins and improving the kitchen operations .

With the help of OPERA PMS, the hotels can fulfill the customized demands of the guests thereby improving their productivity, cost effectiveness and efficiency.  The operating cost can be mitigated by centralizing the hardware and the software of the hotels and thus eliminating the necessity for on premise servers on each premise.

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